Trying to self-improve in a method that, regardless of its objective effectiveness, makes you feel satisfied and has no discernable effect on those around you?

Not if I can help it!

What exactly is FFMPEG an alternative to? I keep hearing people mention it, but I've never stopped to look into it until now.

I tend to do some very basic video editing just to put an image with an audio file so I can upload my music to YouTube. This can do what I need it to do? To what degree can this replace a video editor with a full graphical interface?

Edit: Nevermind. I definitely misunderstood what the tool was at a fundamental level. Got it now.

Hot take: the web should not be more human.

And I'm pretty progressive on technological matters. There should still be a clear separation, though.

Supreme beef chalupas.

My saying, as it relates to Taco Bell, is: "It's shit, but it's good shit."

Yeah. I never considered that this wouldn't be normal, though. I kinda always had a "healthier than average" palate throughout my childhood as well as doing physical activities, and maybe the discernment comes from that as you're suggesting.

Is there anyone in particular you've spoken to that doesn't have this sense?

It's such a great concept and the lumatone is beautiful execution. Hopefully I can start saving for one sometime this decade.

In my opinion that's a pretty generous list of reasons to buy a game without much further questioning or research. I think the last game I almost immediately bought ~10 minutes after hearing about it was YOMI Hustle for $5 in May of last year.

That said, looking through my purchase history I can tell you that the amount I have spent on Warframe, a F2P game, is vile.

If you don't have a particular need for lyrics, or lyrics that you can understand (presumably), I've got a few for you.

Nyokabi Kariũki - Nazama | (Bandcamp) > YT Link

Aivi & Surasshu - Mika | (Bandcamp) > YT Link

The following is a very short performance for a promotional video for the Lumatone keyboard, but I have it saved in my playlist because of how beautiful it is.

Lumatone performance (YT Link)

I think it demonstrates the vastness of the musical realm by splitting the notes we typically associate with western music into different (and often more numerous) divisions of the octave. One of the best applications of this besides getting that ethereal feeling is that it allows you to explore intervals to a finer degree i.e. achieve cleaner melodic and harmonic tones that are mathematically pleasing to the human ear and mind. This whole concept is called microtonality if anyone is interested. And to your question, OP, I think searching in this area can help you find some of that cosmic, alternative sound you're looking for.

I know I got a little bit away from the question here, but getting into the microtonal/xenharmonic realm was so magical for me because while I enjoy your typical music theory teachings, I'm very much on the more scientific side of things, and music has always been that intriguing intersection between the indiscriminate and cosmic nature of mathematics and the emotional and beautifully flawed nature of artistic expression. Finding the community and literature around xenharmonic music helped me find my way of exploring music in a way that comes naturally to me.

Edit: One that's a little more "energetic" that I always get lost in. The entire album is great, but this track in particular - Homestuck: Medium - Frogs (YT Link)

Hidden Brain. It's a psychology podcast, but it's aimed at anyone who wants to understand their minds more. I'm not in the field of psychology, but I certainly enjoy it.

Soft Skills Engineering for software engineers, about soft skills. They have fun.

bcuz its qwiker

Most of the music I listen to is OST, so I have a ton of those playlists where it's the full soundtrack, whether or not I like the specific song.

And then I have two other dedicated playlists. One is called "Eclectic series," which is composed of literally anything I find in the wild and like, and therefore is my largest playlist (besides one huge playlist surrounding a certain webcomic). The other is similar in inspiration, but is music that I liked and want to keep for reference but probably wouldn't want showing up in my shuffle queue. This tends to be any lyrical music that I find and like.

And then I just throw it all except the lyrical music into a third-party music shuffler.

The trade-offs with this model are that it takes a lot less effort to build up your playlist because everything goes into basically one place, and so your library and exposure grow fairly quickly, but at the cost of less control at playback, since everything is either grouped canonically or unsorted altogether.

Works for me since I don't listen to much lyrical music and can get into the dynamic flow and artistry of the music without the distraction of words, but it's probably not great for people who enjoy lyrics and poetry.

Edit: I should mention that I've been working on-and-off on a tool that automates and facilitates playback for god-lists and ant-lists alike for a while now. It's been a minute since I've touched it, but maybe I should get back to it.

Certainly. I don't think I ever watched or played it, but I remember young me pronouncing it "zack-see-oh zack-see-oh" every time it came up, which was a lot because I lived on Flash games.